My jazz world: the music I love, the gigs I've attended, and the wonderful performers definitely worthy of wider recognition.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Misha's Story

A while back, one of my past blogpost subjects, Misha Tsiganov, sent me an English language translation of an article on him, which originally appeared in a Russian magazine, Jazz.Ru, in 2007. Finally, here it is for everybody else to read as well:It all began with a white envelope bearing Berklee College of Music logo
in the left upper corner I found in my mailbox one beautiful morning.In Leningrad in 1990, my friends offered
to deliver a tape with my playing the piano to Berklee in Boston. At the time
this was totally unexpected since I had no material I considered worthy of
being sent. Initially, I ignored the offer, but after being pressured by
friends, I found a recording that my brother Alexei, who plays the vibraphone,
and I had recently made and gave them the tape without any particular hope for
success. I was lucky. Gary Burton, the chairman of the Jazz Department who was
almost impossible to find at his office since he was always on tour, happened
to be in his room, took the tape, and promised to listen to it. Later he said
that we were very fortunate because if he had not been in his office, the tape
would have ended up in the archives and would probably have been lost.So on that morning I went to Mussorgsky
College of Music as usual, checking my mailbox on the way. There was an
envelope from Berklee. By the way, I still have this letter in safe keeping. In
the letter Gary Burton wrote that he liked our playing a lot, that we showed
much promise, and that we must continue our education at Berklee. He also
promised to help us get a scholarship. As I read the letter, I couldn’t believe
my eyes. After that, correspondence came from Berklee about the scholarship and
with information that the school would take care of the travel papers and other
matters pertaining to our coming here. It was roughly a year later when my
brother and I arrived in America, the land of jazz. The first man I saw in the
crowd waiting for arrivals at the New York airport was a great Russian
saxophonist Igor Butman full of energy and optimism. Seeing him instilled hope.
Since we were whisked off so fast in a car to Boston and to our new life, we
were unable to have even a fleeting look at New York.We
arrived to Boston the same day. Gary Burton did help us. Even though nobody got
a full scholarship that year, both Alexei and I were offered $4,000 a piece.
Since the tuition for a semester at that time was $5,000, each of us was $1,000
short, and for us this was an unattainable amount. Clearly, we had
misunderstood something in our correspondence with Berklee, for we had been led
to believe that we would be able to pay the lacking funds by working at the
college. However, this wasn’t the case, so we had to postpone studying at
Berklee indefinitely.The three of us (my brother and I had been
joined by a student from Latvia) settled in a small room in the attic of a
dentist’s home. Since the dentist who had studied Russian needed practice with
the language, he periodically came to us to talk, and communicating with him in
our language was how we paid our rent. Hard times began. Since we had no work
permit, we had to play in the subway stations and on the street. When one puts
his instruments on a street for the first time, it is not a good feeling. We
had to “break” ourselves. It’s hard to to suddenly feel like a nobody and have
to play and collect money in a hat after having given serious concerts in big
concert halls in St. Petersburg, after receiving applause and signing
autographs, and after having our posters displayed all over town. However, we
knew that if we made no money, we wouldn’t eat. In America, almost everyone starts at ground zero no matter who he was
at home, and we surely started there. Every day the money was growing shorter.
Once we went to a supermarket and filled a big shopping cart with pasta. When
we started to pay, the cashier looked at us as if we were from another planet.
She had never seen anybody buying so much pasta. When we saw how perplexed she
was, we told her that today the store had a good sale on pasta and that it was
cheaper than ever. The cashier said that today they did in fact have an
unprecedented sale on pasta. Hearing that, we went back and bought all the
pasta we could find in the supermarket. In our room the boxes of pasta lined
one of the walls from floor to ceiling. Later, as we moved from apartment to
apartment, instead of bringing furniture with us, we brought pasta. In Boston I often associated with a great
Russian pianist Eugene Maslov. He had already been in America three years, and
many people knew him. I often went to his concerts where he introduced me to
the best musicians in Boston. I began making some contacts and gave my first
concerts at jazz clubs. For the first time I understood what capitalism is. At
the end of the 80s when I performed at festivals and in clubs in Russia, my
salary never depended on the number of listeners. Here, though, if people
didn’t come, I made nothing. Of course, this was not always true, but in my
case it was. I remember making a giant pile of ads and pasting them wherever
possible all over town. This scheme often worked, for people came to hear me
play.The world is not without good people, so
we eventually found money for the rest of our tuition for Berklee. I loved
studying, but getting experience performing was the most valuable part of being
at Berklee.In 1993, thanks to drummer Oleg Butman for
his recommendation, I was offered a steady job in New York City. I had always
relished the idea of moving there, but until then, I had not had the
opportunity. My life in this incredible city started with a great trumpeter
Alex Sipiagin, who met me at the bus station in the middle of Manhattan on
Forty-Second Street. As we exited the station, I looked around and asked where
Manhattan was, still not realizing that I was already there. We walked all of
Manhattan on foot and strolled in the Village where Sasha showed me some of the
famous jazz clubs, such as “Blue Note,” “Village Vanguard,” and “Sweet
Basil.”In the evening Alex and bassist Boris
Kozlov took me to a Russian restaurant for an audition. I was hired for the job
and promised a decent salary. I fully realized where I'd come and what music
I’d have to play. Even though the music was far from jazz, it was the price I’d
have to pay to move to New York. I had to learn all restaurant repertoire.
Later, I often moved from one restaurant to another. For half a year I accompanied
famous Russian singer Willie Tokarev. Overall, I worked in the Russian
restaurants for eight years. Occasionally, I had stimulating meetings, for
Russian restaurants often used talented American singers who worked with stars
like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Tower of Power. To accompany them was
fun. Many other Russian musicians, such as Igor Butman, Sasha Sipiagin, Eugene
Maslov, Renat Shaimuhametov, Viacheslav Nazarov, have also gone through working
at Russian restaurants. Of course, all of us wanted to enter “Big Jazz,” but it
isn’t simple because in the meantime, rent has to be paid, and groceries have
to be bought. While working at the Russian restaurants, I
constantly went to jam sessions and spent nights at the jazz clubs. Soon I
began to getting jazz gigs and making some useful acquaintances. In 1998 I was invited to Norman Hedman’s
Tropique, a very engaging project. From there I began to give concerts at the
jazz clubs, travel to big jazz festivals, and be interviewed on radio and
television. In 2000 we recorded an album on Palmetto Records that took sixth
place on the USA music charts. In 2003 on Norman’s recommendation,
saxophonist Chico Freeman invited me to play with his band. An interesting note
is that in 1990 in Moscow when the biggest Russian jazz festival featuring
Freddie Hubbard, Branford Marsalis, Benny Golson, and others took place, Norman
Hedman played percussion in Chico Freeman’s group. Naturally, I was in Moscow
for all of these days. As I sat in the concert hall, I, of course, couldn’t
even imagine that I would eventually join Norman Hedman’s group and a little
later Chico Freeman’s group. During the two years I worked with Chico, we
recorded an album on Arabesque Records, played in many New York clubs, and
traveled to Europe. Working on the record “Nine Guys From Out
Of Town” with the admirable musicians Michael and Randy Brecker was one of the
most absorbing events of my recent years. The record contains three of my
compositions, and the Brecker brothers play on two of them. Dave Valentine, a
famous flute player, also participated. I was especially amazed by Michael
Brecker’s scrupulousness and need for perfection. After playing solo on one of
my compositions, he asked for it to be saved because he wanted to record
himself again using the same accompaniment. Doing so is not difficult with
modern technology. Then he had his performance recorded for the third, fourth,
and fifth times. In the end, none of his solos satisfied him completely, so he eventually
suggested that we choose the version we liked most. We couldn’t understand him
because to us all of his solos sounded perfect. Michael, though, gave me a
lesson on how demanding one should be toward one’s work. Following Chico Freeman’s recommendation,
Joe Chambers invited me to his band. Joe is a legendary drummer who has
recorded a huge number of records with such outstanding musicians as Chick
Corea, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Bobby
Hutcherson, Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, Hubert Laws, and Tommy Flanagan, and
others. Since I had listened to and studied Chick Corea’s “Tones for Joan’s
Bones” and Wayne Shorter’s “Adam’s Apple” with Joe Chambers on the drums long
before coming to the USA, Joe’s offer was unbelievable.In my many years spent in the USA, I
understood that in most cases only recommendations will help a musician get
anywhere. Somebody who knows you well mentions you to somebody else. Then this
somebody calls you and offers you something, and so it goes. Gradually, your
connections grow, more “necessary” people know about you, and your chances for
career advancement increase.Since 2004 I’ve been working with Joe
Chambers. During this time we have played in many New York clubs and also recorded
the album “The Outlaws” on Savant Records. I think that our trip to Greece was
one of the most unforgettable events. While there, we played in Athens at the
Half Note Jazz Club seven days in a row with Joe Chambers on the drums, Gary
Bartz on saxophone, Dwayne Burno on bass, and me on the piano. In these seven
days I came to understand more about jazz than I had in the previous ten years,
for a musician gains priceless performing experience only by going onstage and
playing every day with other musicians who are far superior to him rather than
by just meeting them accidentally at jam sessions once a year. In fact, I know
many phenomenally gifted musicians whose lives have prevented them from gaining
sufficient performance experience. I also know talented but not spectacularly
gifted musicians whose fate has given them the chance to share the stage
constantly with great jazz masters. As a result, in time the latter musicians
greatly surpass the first. I think that constant practice with more
experienced musicians is most important in jazz. When you find yourself in an
extreme situation where you have no right to play below the level of the
musicians sharing the stage expect from you, you suddenly discover new
resources you possibly didn’t even suspect you had. It seems as if you catch a
string that pulls out “hidden” reserves. If you were in this situation just
once, it’s possible that you caught this string but most likely didn’t
understand how you did it, but if you find yourself doing this every day, you
begin to meld into the state of mind when this indescribably complex sensation
of you and music as one takes place. When you can reach that state at will, you
can consider yourself a real master from that moment on. In St. Petersburg I acquired invaluable
experience while constantly jamming with a famous Russian multi-instrumentalist
David Goloschokin and working in Valery Zuikov Band. I will never forget how I
entered the stage of the Jazz Philarmonic Hall for the umpteenth time to play
with David’s group. When my time to solo came, I started to play. David turned
to me and said or rather ordered, “Swing it; swing it!”I understood that if I didn’t swing it, I’d
be in trouble. When saxophonist Valery Zuikov invited me to play with his band,
I had an opportunity to play with the best St. Petersburg soloists, such as
trumpeters Alexander Berenson and Boris Romanov, guitarist Alexander
Starostenko, and others. I will always remember Goloschokin and Zuikov with a
special gratitude, for what they gave me is priceless.I’ve been living in New York City for many
years now, and I really love this city. I love it because Charlie Parker, Dizzy
Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk have created their amazing art on its streets. I
love New York for its cutthroat competition which won’t allow me to relax and
which constantly pushes me to grow. New York is unquestionably the world’s jazz
capital. Many musicians who achieved high results in jazz come here from all
over the world to test their skills. For this reason many brilliant jazz
musicians live in New York, competing with one another. There isn’t enough work
for everybody, and a kind of “arms race” takes place. In this “race” musicians
“arm” themselves with knowledge, technology, and experience to achieve a higher
level of playing. Quite recently, I visited Russia. In St.
Petersburg my group performed at the Theater of Estrada at a jazz festival
organized by Kvadrat Jazz Club. We played as a quartet: Andrei Ryabov on the
guitar; Dmitry Kolesnik on the bass; Oleg Butman on the drums; and I on the
piano. After that we played two concerts in Moscow in Le Club. There we were
joined by Craig Handy, a great New York saxophonist. I had the best of
impressions regarding the trip and would like to thank everyone for such a warm reception. I was very glad to see Vladimir Feyertag and Nathan Leytes. It felt as if I had dipped for a moment into the good old times. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the skill of the young Russian jazz musicians whose level of playing has grown considerably in the past 15-20 years. In fact, some St. Petersburg and Moscow guys play on a solid New York level. I believe that Russian musicians will always be able to pave their way to jazz heights and take a deserving place in the world jazz scene.

1 comment:

Such a great story Fran. Really enjoyed it.Encapsulates so much of what it takes to pursue a career in music, especially jazz. At least from other stories I have read.Inspirational and filled with surprises and luck and hope.Cheers!